I'm currently training for a half-marathon in Fort Collins that has massive hills with such names as "Monster Mountain" and "Dam Hill." This will be my first real race at elevation: my first mile-high. With all that up (and down), my goal time is pretty conservative. I was thinking about not even wearing a watch: just going with the road and the pain and wind that lives in the reservoirs of Northern Colorado.
When I started running with my father in 1990 we didn't use any technology: it didn't exist. No Garmin, no Gu, no distractions. When Ed Whitlock started, there was no such thing as running shoes. It pains me that we lost this legacy to cancer--the thing that takes our best. But, Ed taught us a lot: to get out there, to do the thing, to listen to the body. Leave the phone and the music and the heart-rate monitor at home. Shoes. Laces, I guess. That's about all you need. Keep competing, if only against yourself.
Pour one out for Ed: he likely ran his last half-marathon faster than I'll run my next!